Thursday, July 22, 2010

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Census (But Were Afraid To Ask)

The Great Census Crisis of 2010 has its first music video. It’s only a matter of time before angry mobs of statisticians take to the streets holding “I’m with Fellegi signs” and chanting “What do we want? Mandatory long form Census! When do we want? Every 5 years!”. Don’t worry, if you can’t make the rallies, you can always show your support symbolically by wearing a Census-themed pocket protector.

Now, I fully recognize that during the summer the only random sampling Canadians are concerned about involves six packs. So for those of you who haven’t been grabbed by the witty “senseless Census” headlines, I present a summary of what the !%@# is going on.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS ALL ABOUT?

Governments have been conducting censuses for thousands of years – and the good ones are never voluntary. As a Charlie Brown Christmas taught us, Mary and Joseph didn’t have much of a choice when it came to being counted.

In Canada, the Census takes place every 5 years. All Canadians get the short form which asks the basic questions – name, age, gender, marital status, language. One in five houses get the long form which asks you about your sexual history, voting habits, and embarrassing High School nicknames. I’m kidding of course, but that’s what the government would have you believe. In reality, it asks questions about everything from your income to your ethnicity to your daily commute. On average, you’ll have to fill out 2 or 3 long forms in your life.

The debate focuses on the long form. Those trying to axe the Census argue these questions are an invasion of privacy. “Why the hell should the government know what time I leave to go to work?” they shout angrily on their twitter accounts and in Toronto Sun editorials.

“Well,” the other side argues “so that cities can build roads and public transit to help you get to work on time. Duh.”

The reality is we live in an information age, and long form Census data is a valuable source of information. Governments use it to help plan communities and programs. Hospitals need it to provide the right kind of services and fight pandemics. Researches use it to track demographic trends over time. Masters students, like Stephen Harper, use it to write thesis papers. Think tanks, like the Fraser Institute, use it to prove their kooky right wing theories. And businesses use it all the time – just think of restaurants and grocery stores that sell ethnic foods or cater to specific client demographics.

THE PROBLEM WITH MAKING IT VOLUNTARY

As soon as you make a survey self-selecting (i.e. voluntary), certain types of people are more likely to fill it out. That’s why you really don’t want to put too much stock in the web polls on the Globe & Mail’s website.

Studies in the past have shown low income Canadians, visible minorities, and aboriginals are less likely to fill out voluntary surveys (I might add, these studies could only show this because we have Census data as a point of comparison). So if you’re trying to ensure government programs to help aboriginals are working...and low income aboriginals aren’t filling out the long form...you have a problem.

That’s why the US quickly scrapped plans to use a voluntary census after experimenting with the idea in 2003. Imagine that! Making sure it works first, instead of making the change because of a few angry e-mails.

THE GREAT CENSUS CRISIS OF 2010

Three weeks ago, it was quietly announced that the 2011 long form Census would become voluntary. Instead of being sent to every 5th household, it would be sent to every 3rd household. The cost of this? An extra 30 million dollars.

I’m sure it never occurred to the man who said “only elites care about prorogation” that anyone would care about something as dull as survey methodology. Hell, Tony didn’t understand it himself and he was the Minister of Industry – how could normal non-elite Canadians be expected to understand the issue, much less care about it?

But slowly, people began taking notice and speaking out against the move.

Faced with this backlash, the empire struck back this week. After all, the party which sends Happy Hanukkah cards to swing voters feels you have a right to your privacy. First, there was the Star Wars themed press release, and accusations that Census officials would break down your door at 10 pm while you were "trying to read" (reading? That sounds awfully elitist to me). Then, the Toronto Sun wrote an editorial comparing the long form Census to communism (you know who else conducted a Census? Hitler!).

Maxime Bernier has emerged as the government’s point man on this, which is understandable – if there’s anyone who understands how easy it is for confidential information to leak out, it’s Max. Bernier has laid out the government’s position which is, in short, that it’s wrong to “coerce” Canadians into filling out “intrusive” questions, under the threat of imprisonment.

LOOKING AT THE GOVERNMENT’S ARGUMENT

The problem with this argument, is that it’s inconsistent with the government’s actions.

If there are specific questions they feel are intrusive, they can be removed. Personally, I don’t find the Census any less intrusive than an income tax form, and data is only reported in averages and totals – there’s no way anyone anywhere will know what I wrote on my Census form.

If they don’t see any value in the long form, then they should axe it altogether and save the money.

If they feel it’s “coercive” to force Canadians to fill out a form, then why are they still being coerced into completing the short form? And why are farmers being coerced into filling out an equally intrusive agricultural long form? Furthermore, does the “tough on crime” party actually believe that threatening to put people in jail for breaking the law amounts to “coercion”? Oh, and I should add that no one has ever gone to jail in Canada for not filling out their Census form. Just thought I'd mention that.

In short, Clement has come up with a more expensive and less effective alternative.

Now, in fairness, the government has also claimed there's a groundswell of Canadians who feel the Census is intrusive. And, if voters did feel this way, there might be an argument to make for changing it. I’d argue the benefits of the Census still justify it (I mean, who likes paying taxes or being called for jury duty), but it would be a fair argument.

Maxime Bernier claims “thousands of e-mails” were sent to him complaining about the long form Census in 2006. Perhaps, but we have no proof of this. I guess it's possible Bernier misplaced them. What we do have proof from is 22 "expressions of concern" sent to StatsCan during the 2006 Census process, and 3 complaints to the privacy commissioner over the past decade. At the same time, the privacy commissioner has raised concerns about other programs which the government shows no interest in scrapping.

Still, the government’s decision appears to have found some support. Tony Clement has personally thanked 10 people by name on Twitter for their words of encouragement. By the way, Tony Clement has 3500 followers on Twitter.

WHAT NOW?

The government appears unlikely to back down and there’s no indication this issue has captivated the hearts and minds of Canadians.

37 Comments:

I still don't get what this is about, from the government's perspective. There's no movement of Ron Paul-inspired libertarians on the government's right flank, lobbying for this sort of thing. I get that there's some advantage to the arguments of a conservative philosophy if the poor and underrepresented become more invisible, but that's a pretty long game strategy to be engaged in. Against the groundswell of support, including from their own constituencies... well, I'm not seeing enough of an upside for them to continue down this path. Someone please explain it to me.

It's not just web polls. ALL polls are voluntary. You shouldn't place too much stock in ANY poll, if you don't trust an optional census.

But polls are just WAY too much fun for everyone, so we pretend they're super-accurate.

The government is clearly trying to have their cake and eat it too with the ridiculous idea that you can correct sample bias by increasing sample size. But the pro-Census crowd is ignoring the fact that making a census mandatory does not in any way guarantee accurate data. I suspect that a great many people filling out the long form do it as quickly as possible and don't give a crap about being accurate. (It isn't high school and they're not being graded on it after all.)

The British seem to have come up with an idea that seems be simultaneously more and less intrusive. (And probably less expensive.) They're looking at combing existing databases to gather the data.

Do you think the Tea-Party dumbing down of the US occurred overnight? One could reasonably argue that there was a brief moment in time in the early 70s where the US and Canada were reasonably close in terms of political spectrum.

Well, after the introduction of "supply side" (affectionately known as trickle-down ecomonmics) in the early 80s, the rise of a new far-right media empire now eclipsing anything the supposedly "left-leaning media" could ever have achieved, and nearly 30 years of "choking the beast" (i.e. progressive policy, again harkening back to the Reagan revolutionaries and their conservative think-tanks), the US finds itself in rather a echo-chamber of snarling discontents to which those same players call for . . . you guessed it, more of the same.

So, again, there is a long con.

You may not believe it, but you should. One day you too may wake up and wonder what the hell happened to your country.

Decisions happened, for a long time. Lots of little decisions, all of which were built around the premise of destroying the effectiveness of, and faith in, progressive government policy.

I know. I've lived it.

And you know who taught the new cons in Canada how it works? Their good friends from down south.

And one more thought for Don. Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that one of the great con puppet-masters was chatting with the media about using "incrementalism" to shift the political culture and trajectory of Canada? Look for the article . . . it will tell you everything you need to know about this little Census issue, and hundreds of other changes and shifts and decisions made since Harper came to power.

"That’s why the US quickly scrapped plans to use a voluntary census after experimenting with the idea in 2003"

I've read that some European nations also scrapped the mandatory census. Did they go back to it?Most info needed by municipalities can be gleaned from their own buildings permits. Businesses can do their own marketing research.The racial/ethnic info seems to be what would be missing.

Anon's 100% right: "Decisions happened, for a long time. Lots of little decisions, all of which were built around the premise of destroying the effectiveness of, and faith in, progressive government policy.

I know. I've lived it.

And you know who taught the new cons in Canada how it works? Their good friends from down south."

THE NEOCON MOVEMENT IN THE USA HAS BEEN FEEDING THE REFORMERS SINCE BEFORE THEIR ELECTION TO GOV'T. LOOK THROUGH MEDIA REPORTS (GOOGLE IT) TO SEE HOW MANY CANADIAN NEOCONS ATTENDED MEETINGS OF THE "NEW AMERICAN CENTURY" BUNCH. THE LESSONS THEY LEARNED WERE ALL ABOUT TAKING APART GOVERNMENT AND THE "DUMBING DOWN" OF THE NATION.

THE DUMBING DOWN OF CANADA COULD OCCUR RATHER INNOCUOUSLY IF ALLOWED TO. FIRST THEY ATTACK SCIENCE AND FACTUAL INFO. THEN THEY TRY TO BREAK DOWN CANADIAN CONTENT ON OUR AIRWAVES - SO WE CAN BE POLUTED BY THE CRAP FROM THE US... OH.. AND ALSO LAUNCH A LOONEY RIGHT WING "NEWS-FO-TAINMENT" CHANNEL. NOW THEY'LL TRY TO REMOVE ANY FACTUAL DATA THAT COULD REFUTE THEIR IDIOTIC ARGUMENTS...

Paranoia's not illegal or morally wrong, and I agree 100% w/Bernier: prison is not the answer for those who don't wish to contribute to the government's needs for data.

The reality is we live in an information age

Yes - this is the clincher above all else. Personal information is more open than it has been before - I don't think it's possible to stop that. There's a valid concern to have of a government possessing information... however the solution is not to deprive government of information.

I know I'm a New Democrat, and therefore already crazy, but could we for just a moment take a step back and assume that the Prime Minister of Canada isn't a Bond villian? I mean, I imagine Harper to be the intellectual and political equivalent of David Frum. Ask David Frum what he thinks of the current right in his adopted country. Kissinger, Haig, and Bush Sr. did not want to create Sarah Palin, of this I'm convinced.

I think Harper's long game consists of making the Conservatives the new natural governing party, something he doesn't accomplish if he can't prove to many more Canadians that he doesn't have scary hidden agendas. I'm not saying he won't sneak through something he thinks advances the cause of conservatism years down the road, I'm just saying it's not a hill he's going to be willing to die on. There's a reason defunding the opposition parties hasn't been reintroduced since the coalition scare. Harper has excellent survival instincts.

So I ask again. What's the upside for Harper? Why's he willing to go so far down the road on this one? Is he still convinced everyone's gonig to forget about this and move on? I hear there's a long-form Facebook fanpage now. The cost-benefit analysis seems way out of whack. What am I missing?

Harper is an ideologue. Note I did not say the devil. But he is an ideologue.

In this instance, it is sounding more and more that this was his idea . . . there is even some mumbling that even Clement wasn't really all that keen on ditching the mandatory census long form.

Harper is thinking that it is a small, "incremental" step to change Canada. And he is counting, as he always has, that Canadians will forget, or at least let it slide.

He's done it each time he undermines a part of the government - think Linda Keen, Elections Canada, etc, etc.

This is no different.

The upside for Harper is he gets to chip away at the Canada he has throughout his career admitted he doesn't really care for and replace it with a Canada that operates the way he'd like it to. I'm sure he thinks "starving the beast" of "silly progressive data" is necessary to transform the country into a more conservative one.

It's not paranoia to say that . . . it's just connecting the rather obvious dots.

My fear is that the damage has been done. After all of this, regardless of how it plays out - and even if the government does a full reversal - there's no doubt in my mind thousands of crazy rednecks are going to refuse to fill out the form in 2011 because the Conservatives have told them it's a senseless invasion of privacy.

The "Toronto Sun editorial" links to an op-ed by Tony Clement. The Toronto Sun editorial board doesn't necessarily agree with the Minister.

Link is fixed. But, given the Toronto Sun's editorial says "Are we supposed to believe he is blowing smoke?" when taking Clement's claims at face value then it certainly seems like they agree with the Minister.

''The minister said he is "in no way saying that the federal government is moving in the wrong direction" but rather that the province needs to know its information needs will continue to be met despite whatever changes are coming.''

BC

"I know the census is a federal responsibility and they will manage it," said Premier Gordon Campbell. "The province will work with the information that we get to make the best decisions that we can."

Nova ScotiaGovernment officials in Nova Scotia say they are looking closely at the decision to see how their own policy work will be impacted.

What I don't understand is the paranoia. I mean, SO WHAT if the government knows how many bedrooms you have? How can anybody really think that sort of innocuous (yet possibly important for policy development) information can be used "against" them, ESPECIALLY considering that the data is aggregated?

Many of the other concerns about other questions are equally (to me at least) paranoic.

If you read the law (http://bit.ly/bTd1nw) you will see the Census exists to count the number of people so that the number can fit into a formula to determine how many seats each province gets in the house of commons.

That's it. That's why the census exists.

Stats Canada has no problem standing beside any of it's sampled data, but for some reason killing the census will mean unreliable data? Even when it's clear by the 21,000 people who said they were jedi knights, that people lie on the mandatory form?

Let's get the census back to what it is supposed to do, count us. That's it. Leave the bickering and political infighting aside. No one wins when we do that.

It seems odd that the Liberals have also conveniently ignored that about 160,000 Canadians refused to fill out the long form last time around.

Then they claim that somehow those 160,000 probably didn't exhibit any statistical bias - which would invalidate the data.

Sounds like a lot more than the 3 people which the Liberals talk about as complaining about invasion of privacy.

Then there's the coverage in the G&M that Canadians are in support of the Long-form Census. Which, if true, means that StatsCan will have no problem whatsoever in getting the long form filled in and returned by everyone this time around.

Strategically, here is how I see the matter. Firstly, this is a potential wedge issue for the Conservatives. Depending on whether you prefer Ipsos or Angus, this could be a politically advantageous move. At the very least, I suspect the Tory base is motivated (whereas they were not happy about the G-8 spending issue).

Secondly, as a matter of public policy, this move benefits conservative interests much more than others. Young people, aboriginals and French Canadians are less likely to fill out census forms. That gets translated into seats, into federal dollars, and so on. A voluntary census ensures a transfer of power and resources to Conservative-friendly constituencies.

Thirdly, it is interesting how little Harper has said on the matter. I think Harper is letting Clement wrap himself in this issue. If it flies, Harper will start taking credit. If all goes badly, Harper will leave Clement to twist in the wind, and then send him to purgatory (Veteran's Affairs?).

Since 2009 the Tories have been less united internally. Tony Clement is a serial leadership contender, and surely has ambitions of succeeding Harper. Preempting a palace coup may be Harper's upshot if all of this goes south.

Well, Louie, I don't know what law you're reading, but the Statistics Act doesn't define any details concerning the census, except that:

21. (1) The Governor in Council shall, by order, prescribe the questions to be asked in any census taken by Statistics Canada under section 19 or 20.

Nice try with the laughable talking points.

I don't see any strategic value to this at all. Sure, a small section of cranks find this to their liking, but the media coverage has been - and will remain - profoundly negative. And rightly so, for culminating in the Chief Statistician's resignation, this has been an appalling display of fact-free ideologically-motivated garbage from a government which has become divorced from any notions of competence or principle.

"It is a matter of degree. A lot more people would weasel out of doing the census if it were voluntary."

That's hilarious!

Thousands of people identify their religion as "Jedi", but the results are considered valid because it's mandatory.

About five times as many refuse to fill it out as the previous go round, but the results are valid because it's mandatory. And because there *might* be a higher refusal rate if it's voluntary.

Either Canadians support the long-form census or they do not. If they do, then there will be no problem getting people to answer the questions completely and honestly. And if they do not, then making it mandatory hasn't had the desired effect in the past, and won't in the future.

1. I somewhat agree with you, actually. We should enforce the census more strongly, and penalize the 160,000 people that refuse to take it.

2. However, you are dead wrong if you think that making the census voluntary will not change results. 19% of Canadians have said they would not take the census if it were voluntary - this is probably an understatement. In that case you are talking about millions of people - in particular, French people, young people and aboriginals - that will not take the long form. So yes, it is a problem of a much greater magnitude.

3. The current census is not perfect, nobody is arguing that. However, the problems you are talking about involve one question (religion) and much less than 1% of the population.

To some extent mistakes or even lies on the census need not inhibit its accuracy. So long as people do not systematically lie in one direction more than another, one's lies or mistakes cancels the other out in a massive survey.

The problem with a voluntary survey is different. There the fundamental problem is one of the survey's representativeness. Certain groups are more likely to avoid a voluntary census. This has a real world impact for the distribution of government funds and the quality of public policy.

Is it intrusive? I guess, but we are talking about a government that takes half our money (and it will need to take more to get the same result if it operates with bad data), continues to conduct multiple other surveys that are just as "intrusive". This is a ridiculously bad place in which to have a libertarian revolution.

"We should enforce the census more strongly, and penalize the 160,000 people that refuse to take it."

So, instead of having people simply not fill out the forms you'd rather have them lie on them? And this will somehow improve data quality?

If someone is against telling the government something on principle (however misguided or stupid you, me, or anyone else may think that principle is), do you really think they are going to truthfully fill out a form when coerced? Of course not. They're going to lie unless you somehow police people's responses. And are you really prepared to go down that road?

19. (1) A census of population of Canada shall be taken by Statistics Canada in the month of June in the year 1971, and every fifth year thereafter in a month to be fixed by the Governor in Council.

Counts of electoral divisions

(2) The census of population shall be taken in such a manner as to ensure that counts of the population are provided for each federal electoral district of Canada, as constituted at the time of each census of population."

This will allow the government to step back gracefully, without abandoning their stated commitment to a voluntary "coercion-free" census. Having an additional "voluntary" data set will also provide Statistics Canada with an abundance of useful data for 2011, which will be very useful for analyses, and which will justify the one-time extra cost.